Pamela Moresby
Last Sunday we went for a Sunday drive and I stopped at a Bridge by Karaka. There was a lot of bird activity even though the tide was out.
There was much flight with the Pied Shags who swam and dived for fish under the bridge. They would let the water take them under the bridge and then fly back and do it all again. Sometimes they would dive.
The Terns flew over head and seemed to hover in the air as if following a fish in the water. The winds were quite strong but then not as strong as the gale force winds we have today. The Thumbnail shows us a Juvenile Tern in flight. I can tell because it has a bit of grey on its head, rather than jet black.
Then there were Juvenile Black Backed Gulls, I noticed there were no adult Black Backed Gulls. These Gulls looked like they actually floated in the air with hardly any movement of their wings and dive down and swoop.
Lastly, only one White Faced Grey Heron standing on the mud observing everything around him. I think he caught fish on the sly..
#1 Tern Flight
#2 Pied Shag flight
#3 White Faced Grey Heron
#4 Juvenile Black Backed Gull Hovering in the air
The Juvenile Black Backed Gull is like this for 2 years until it is a full adult then it's body becomes white and the back of its wings jet black. It has a yellow beak and it is twice the size of an ordinary seagull.
There may have been seagulls around but I didn't see any of them close up.
#5 A Pied Shag swimming
#6 Karaka Bridge
This is a main highway inside Karaka, where we are standing this road continues to a motorway but you are looking at the road away from the motorway.
There is a lot of farmland around but in Auckland just off the motorway, every year in about January or February, there is the famous Karaka thoroughbred horse sales, where some of the yearlings sell for a hundred thousand dollars each.
